Thursday, January 05, 2006

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke will unleash chaos in the country’s political process, a professor of Jewish studies told Baptist Press after the 77-year-old leader was stricken Jan. 4 and placed in intensive care following more than eight hours of emergency surgery at a Jerusalem hospital.

Sharon’s stroke has “thrown the Israeli populace into a terrible quandary,” said Michael Rydelnik of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute.

Sales upThe Life of Faith book and doll series has seen a sales increase since a pro-life group called for a boycott of American Girl.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A conservative-led boycott of the popular American Girl book and doll series during the Christmas season apparently led many parents to seek alternatives -- so much so that one Christian company saw its sales nearly triple in the final weeks of 2005.

The Life of Faith book and doll series -- sometimes called the Christian alternative to American Girl -- experienced a 172 percent increase in sales from the time the boycott began, says Sandi Shelton, president of Mission City Press, which owns the Life of Faith series.

The controversy over American Girl began in September when the company announced a partnership with Girls Inc., a nonprofit youth organization whose advocacy statement supports legalized abortion, contraceptive access and assistance for girls exploring their "sexual orientation."

Breaking the Perfect 10 soap star's pursuit to replace her emptiness by becoming Hollywood's next "perfect 10" caused her to break all God's Ten Commandments before she turned 25. All of them.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Tracy Lindsey Melchior has played some pretty dramatic characters in her roles on popular daytime dramas “Sunset Beach,” “The Young and the Restless,” “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “One Life to Live,” but her real life story tells a tale that even Hollywood writers could not create.

Before she was Kristen, Kelly, Tess or Veronica, the popular daytime actress was just Tracy, who as a child experienced severe poverty, abandonment and emotional trauma when she was almost raped at the age of 12. Her quest for love and her pursuit to replace the emptiness inside by becoming Hollywood’s next “perfect 10” caused her to break all of God’s Ten Commandments before she turned 25.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (BP)--Kurtiss Ewell received one Christmas present a few days late this year, and it came from someone he met last fall while volunteering in a Franklin, Tenn., shelter for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Ewell, a diabetic who suffered from kidney disease, received the gift of a kidney from Audrey Dean Jan. 3.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--PBS’ “Walking the Bible” miniseries tracing the paths of Moses, Isaac, Jacob and the Israelites through the modern-day Middle East was met with mixed assessments by a couple of Southern Baptist theologians.

SPRING HILL, Fla. (BP)--My wife is notorious for taking jokesters seriously. Her serious responses to the jokes she is told are often more laughable than the jokes themselves. Like my wife, our world is increasingly taking jokes seriously.

Formed in 1946 by the Southern Baptist Convention, and supported with Cooperative Program funds, Baptist Press (BP) is a daily (Monday-Friday) international news service. Operating from a central bureau in Nashville, Tenn., BP works with a large network of contributing writers, photographers and editorial providers to produce BP News.